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Todayâ s electric power system is operated under increasingly stressed conditions. As electrical demand increases, the existing grid is operated closer to its stable operating limits while maintaining high reliability of electric power delivery to its customers. Protective schemes are designed to account for pressures towards unstable operation, but there is always a tradeoff between security and dependability of this protection.
Adaptive relaying schemes that can change or modify their operation based on prevailing system conditions are an example of a protective scheme increasing reliability of the power system. The purpose of this thesis is to validate and analyze implementation of the Security-Dependability Adaptive Voting Scheme. It is demonstrated that this scheme can be implemented with a select few Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) reporting positive sequence currents to a Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC). At the PDC, the state of the power system is defined as Stressed or Safe and a set of relays either vote or perform normal operation, respectively.
The Adaptive Voting Scheme was implemented using two configurations: hardware- and software-based PDC solutions. Each was shown to be functional, effective, and practical for implementation. Practicality was based on the latency of Wide Area Measurement (WAM) devices and the added latency of relay voting operation during Stressed conditions. Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), Phasor Data Concentrators (PDCs), and relay operation delays were quantified to determine the benefits and limitations of WAMS protection and implementation of the voting scheme. It is proposed that the delays injected into the existing protection schemes would have minimal effect on the voting scheme but must be accounted for when implementing power system controls due to the real-time requirements of the data.